Jazz's daughter is 4 now. Ja'Miya Howard is full of life. She is all personality.

"She loves to sing. She loves to dance," said Daneisha Freeman, Ja'Miya's mom and Jasper Howard's fiancée. "She does gymnastics. She started preschool and she loves it. She's a happy kid, never cries for anything. Nothing."

Daneisha, Ja'Miya and Howard's two sisters will climb aboard a flight in Miami for Connecticut on Friday. Jazz's mom, Joangila, his stepfather, grandmother, aunt and cousins are driving up from Florida for UConn's homecoming game against Central Florida. In all, there will be nearly 30 making the trip for a homecoming memorial that, at once, never should have been and always had to be.

It has been five years since Howard was killed on the UConn campus hours after a homecoming victory over Louisville at Rentschler Field. It has been five years since John Lomax of Bloomfield needlessly thrust a knife into the UConn defensive back's chest and severed his aorta during a widening scuffle outside a campus dance. Five years since Randy Edsall stood at the hospital identifying Howard's body. Five years since a hard rain fell like tears from the October sky that staggering morning of Howard's death.

"Jazz's death will always be part of my life," Freeman said. "You learn to live with it. I don't think about the details unless I see something or somebody brings it up to me and asks what happened. But even now, five years later, I could repeat the story a million and one times in every detail.

"I want this to inspire every kid who puts on a UConn uniform to remember that every time you step foot out on that field it's a blessing that you get to do something that most kids your age in America don't get to do ... play Division I football at an amazing university" – Lisa Lowry, UConn football

(DESMOND CONNER)

"You don't forget. You never forget."

Daneisha and Ja'Miya will take part in the pregame coin flip Saturday. Daneisha says she knows Howard's death also is part of UConn history. And so we may never forget the searing tragedy of one of UConn's most joyful athletes, a 7-foot, 3.25-ton granite statue that emphasizes his uniform No. 6 will be unveiled at halftime.

The real granite in making the memorial a reality is Lisa Lowry and her husband, Dan, of Prospect. They are longtime ticket holders. Their daughter rowed at UConn. Lisa is the one who told Daneisha she wouldn't allow Howard to be forgotten, and through petitions and hurdles etc., she is the one who saw it through.

"Lisa is so amazing," Freeman said. "She has gone so far out of her way to make sure this statue was done. She was told no numerous times. She petitioned. She did what she had to do. After people told her no, she kept going. She'd tell me, 'It's going to happen. They just don't know it yet.'

"From the time Jazz passed away and she reached out to me, Lisa has been there. She makes sure to check in on me and Ja'Miya. Gifts on birthdays, Christmas, she has done everything, been everything. I'm just so thankful."

Those thanks extend to Edsall. The former UConn coach is the one who made the lead gift to cover the cost of the statue, and Freeman said she wasn't one bit surprised. We can argue about Edsall's departure to Maryland, the manner in which he did it after the Fiesta Bowl, how much UConn has suffered since, but one matter is for certain. In the crushing hours following Howard's death, no coach could have handled the situation with more dignity. His players' hearts were broken, a state's heart was broken. Edsall made sure spirits did not break, too. It is no surprise that so many of his players from the 2009 team will be at The Rent on Saturday.

"When Jazz died, [Edsall] told me he'd still be there for us," Freeman said. "He kept his word. There are Christmas gifts. He flies the family to games at Maryland. It was a wonderful gift from him for the statue."

Freeman graduated from the University of Florida. She is back in Miami, where she and Howard grew up, working on a master's degree in social work at Barry University. She's living with her mom. The tragic irony for Daneisha Freeman is that a young man who survived the tough streets of Little Haiti in Miami would be killed on a benign rural campus.

Yes, she lost her man. She did not lose her life force.

"I am strong. I am very strong," Freeman said when asked what she learned about herself over these past five years. "If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't have realized it. Not too many people go through something like this, pregnant with a child, and the father is killed. Someone takes the life or your child's father, you still have to go to school. You still have to make something of yourself. You still have to provide for this child by yourself, pretty much. I survived because of my strength."

She is strong enough to keep going. Lomax would receive an 18-year prison sentence for first-degree manslaughter, and when I ask her an especially difficult question about what she would say to John Lomax, she said she was strong enough to answer it.

"I really have no feelings," Freeman said. "I'm aware he has a daughter, too. He took Jazz away from his family and his daughter. At the same he took himself away from his family and his daughter. So now you have two little girls who are pretty much fatherless. That is something for us to think about.

"He took someone special away, someone who meant so much to so many people. My daughter, she is going to suffer because of something he did. She's going to see pictures. She'll hear stories how great Jazz was, but that only goes so far."

For now, a vibrant 4-year-old beauty is content to know her father is in heaven and is always with her.

"I haven't explained to her that he was here and he was taken away," Freeman said. "I don't think she's at an age where she'd actually understand what happened or what it really means."

When Ja'Miya looks at his photo, she points and says, "Jasper Howard."

When you ask Ja'Miya about him, she'll say, "Oh, my dad is in heaven. He lives in the sky.

"When the time comes that she asks why the other little kids' fathers are here and hers isn't, maybe that will be the appropriate time to talk about it," Freeman said. "I'm not sure. And I'm not sure when that will be. Until then, we'll keep it like it is."

That means on Friday, after they land in Connecticut, Lisa Lowry will make sure they go trick or treating with Ja'Miya. It's Halloween and that makes Daneisha Freeman laugh. This is not a weekend for sadness, she insists. The tears must only be happy ones.

Of course, she misses Jazz's laugh. The people who only knew Howard from watching him break up passes on the football field didn't know about his effervescence. … Play each play like it's the last … Live 365 … Those are the words tied to Jasper Howard, but to understand them, to fully feel them, they must be said with a smile.

"Jazz put everyone's needs before his own," Freeman said. "He had a kind heart. His teammates, his family and close friends knew he was very giving. If you were down, he'd do anything, any silly little thing to make your day better. What do I miss most about him? The love he had for me. The love he showed me. It's easy to tell someone you love them, but it's another thing to show someone how much you care. He'd send me little letters, little gifts, nothing extravagant, just little things to show me show much.

"There's not one sad feeling in my body coming into this weekend. I'm happy. I'm full of joy. This is big. This is big for Jazz. There is no reason to be sad. The state of Connecticut is celebrating his life. This memorial is a joyful moment. There's no reason to cry."

Believe this. Ja'Miya Howard, singer, dancer, gymnast, Jazz's living memorial, will not be crying. She'll be singing. She'll be dancing.